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Part 1 of 4
Kingdom Gems Series (Week 2)
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We live in a time of unprecedented confusion about identity. All around us, people are fighting over words like male and female, binary and non-binary, Christian and atheist—all these titles people use trying to find identity. Yet tragically, all these conversations about identity are disconnected from the Creator who has left His fingerprint—the image of God—in every person.
It's like an iPhone trying to have a real conversation about itself while disconnected from Apple. Human beings are trying to have real conversations about identity apart from the person who created them.
Here's what I want you to understand: Everyone under the sound of my voice has an identity. And your identity is being shaped either by design or by default. Almost everything else in your life follows how you see yourself.
Your mental architecture—whether it's healthy or unhealthy—follows your identity. If you think of yourself as a victim, it affects the way you think. If you see yourself as a winner or a victor, it affects the way you think.
Your self-worth follows your identity. Your values follow your identity. There are some things I already say no to before the temptation even comes because of my identity. Your interpersonal relationships and how you deal with other human beings—that follows your identity. Your decision-making, how you handle your finances, your spouse, your kids—all of that follows what you think about yourself.
Your worldview—how you see the world, the lens through which you see all of creation and all of humanity—that follows your identity. If you identify as an atheist, you see the world one way. If you identify as a believer, you see the world another way. The universe—uni means singular, verse means sentence—"In the beginning, God created." That's your universe. That's all based on your identity and how you see yourself.
Your lifestyle, your priorities—all these things in life follow identity.
For all of us, our identity was first shaped by our parents or the lack thereof, our guardians, the homes or systems in which we were raised. The things we were exposed to, our experiences, our traumas and lack thereof—everybody comes into the world innocent, and then whatever parents they have, whatever home they're raised in, whatever neighborhood they've been exposed to, whatever systems they've been in, whatever traumas they've suffered, all of that begins to first shape our identity.
I knew a person who was adopted and as they grew older, realized their ethnic parents were not their ethnicity. Sitting at the kitchen table, they looked around and everybody in the room looked different from them. They were searching for identity—they loved their adopted parents and family, but they were struggling to figure out who they were and where they came from.
This person continued to struggle until they met the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming into the faith of God, they experienced a rewiring of their identity. They said, "Although I don't know my biological father, I do know I have a heavenly Father. Although I've never met my biological siblings, I now have brothers and sisters who are siblings by blood." Instead of holding onto the trauma of not knowing their biological family, they assumed a new identity in the kingdom. Now they have spiritual mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. They may never meet their biological father, but they have met their heavenly Father.
Right identity can bring healing. That person chose to fully embrace their new identity in the kingdom, and with that embrace came healing and the letting go of things from the past.
When I'm talking to you about identity—how you see yourself—I'm talking about the connection between three things: identity, functionality, and proper influence.
Look at Jesus Christ as the perfect example. He was born into a home with a stepfather named Joseph. He had brothers and sisters. He knew He came from somewhere else other than all these other people. His own family, when He was an adult, called Him crazy for what He thought about himself. They did not believe. His own family rebuked Him.
But Jesus went about His public ministry making declarations of identity:
It's not enough to just say, "I am the bread of life" but don't feed. It's not enough to say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" but don't go to the cross. It's not enough to say, "I am the resurrection and the life" and leave Lazarus in a tomb. It's not enough to say I am a good shepherd and you don't lead people to greener pastures.
You can't make a declaration of identity with no functionality to match. So identity brings functionality, and functionality brings influence—for good or for bad.
Hitler said, "I am a hater of Jews." So he stirred up world wars and killed over a million Jews. He had an identity, we saw his functionality, and what was the influence? World War. You see how that works? Identity. Functionality. Influence.
Here's what I want to tell you very carefully: In the world and outside the kingdom, you can choose whatever identity you want. You can be fourteen and claim to be whatever. You can choose whatever identity you want.
But inside the kingdom of God, your identity has already been chosen for you. The only question about the identity that's been chosen for you is whether or not you're going to fully embrace it.
If you're saved in this room, you belong to Christ. I don't know what you identified as before you got saved. For me, it was thug, womanizer, drug dealer. I was a hood dude from Queens. That's my only identity. Because of that, I had hood ways and hoodish tendencies and hoodish behavior. That's the identity I chose from the environment I came out of.
But in the kingdom, you cannot choose your identity. In the kingdom, your identity has already been chosen for you. Like ladies, you may be single, but you've already been spoken for. You've already been spoken for before He comes into your life.
In the kingdom, your purpose has already been chosen. That's why you discover it and not pick it.
Let me remind you of the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:3-11:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me.
These are kingdom character traits. The Lord says when you have this kind of character, you are blessed—not blessed as in I'm going to hook you up, but blessed as in makarios—you are flourishing, you will be happy, you are thriving.
In God's eyes, when you live with this kind of character, you are bubbling. You may not have the zeros you want in your account. You may not turn the door that you want. You may not drive what you want. But in God's eyes, when you live with this kind of character, you are flourishing. You are thriving in God's eyes. This is your measuring stick of whether you are thriving—not what you got in your bank account.
Now listen to the closing words of Jesus as He gives this intro to every follower. He's ascribing to you your pre-assigned kingdom identity.
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall it be salted? It is now therefore good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under the feet of men. (Matthew 5:13)
You are the salt of the earth. Now, when you hear salt, you might think of something in a jar sitting on the table. But in the context in which these words were written—the first century AD—salt was one of the most valuable commodities on earth. It was almost as valuable as money.
Salt had multiple uses:
Salt was used for wages. Roman soldiers were paid in salt because it was that valuable. Jesus is saying, "You are the payment for what I did."
Salt was used for covenants. Any agreement between two human beings had to be sealed with salt. If two men made an agreement for land, they would eat salt together, and as they ate the salt, that was a binding contract. Jesus is saying, "We're in a covenant with the Savior."
Salt was used for seasoning. They had a lot of bland food. No Lowry's, no Texas Pete, no A1 sauce. Salt was necessary for almost every single meal to make food taste better. Jesus is saying, "You're the seasoning of the earth. Christianity is supposed to make things taste better in the earth. Your values are supposed to make things better."
But the number one use of salt in the first century AD was as a preservative. When they had no refrigerators, they would pack salt into food to keep it from decaying, from being rotten, from dying. The primary use of salt was to keep things from decay.
When Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth," He is already telling you that the world you are living in is decaying. Society is decaying. Morals are decaying. Values are decaying. Marriages are decaying. Churches are decaying. Morality is decaying. Goodness is decaying. Honor is decaying. Doing right is decaying.
And what Jesus is saying to His children is, I'm packing you into the earth like salt. What I expect My followers to do is to keep back decay. Don't let the family decay. Don't let marriages or the definition of marriage decay. Don't let how we feel about children in the womb decay. Don't let how we do church decay. Don't let godly values and godly standards and godly priorities decay.
Wherever I pack you into that state, city, or nation, man, keep back decay.
And when salt hits food, you can't see it. This part of your identity isn't talking about all that stuff you do on social media. It's not talking about your preaching, your posting a microphone or song. He's talking about the way you move and live amongst people.
Keep back decay on the low. The way you live and move in such a way that without a post I'm keeping back the decay. So that's me fighting to be a good husband with no post and fighting to be a good father with no post and trying to be a real man of God with no post.
"You" are the salt of the earth. That "you" in the Greek is an emphatic pronoun. It means you only—not the government, not social services, not group homes, not anything else. You, My children, you and you only are the salt of the earth. I'm trying to pack y'all in to keep society from decay.
Jesus is looking out over the crowds—this bland pile of humanity with no taste. He sees the brokenness of humanity. And His answer is not just pray for them. His answer is, "I'm going to season y'all with My children."
When I hear people gossiping in the church, I keep back decay by saying, "Let's not gossip. Let's pray for this brother or sister." When I see people trying to slander in the church, I keep back decay by saying, "Let's not slander. Let's pray." When I see people doing things they're not supposed to be doing, I don't need to make no post. I keep back decay by not allowing people to...
Wherever I can enforce Christian values, I'm being salt by keeping back decay.
I see a married couple in trouble. I'm not in the air of the wife saying, "Man, you done messed up." No. You should probably love your husband and be submitted to him and pray for him and be patient. And dude, you should probably be patient with your wife and kind. Like, I'm trying to keep back decay.
When I go into the booth to vote, I'm trying to keep back the decay. I'm not just pulling a lever for blue just because I'm black. Who represents the values of the kingdom? I pull the lever to keep back the decay.
See, if your identity is Democrat, that's the way you vote. If your identity is kingdom, you vote according to the kingdom, not Republican or Democrat. Who best represents the values of the kingdom? You keep attaching all these other things to your identity first. That's why you don't know who you are.
So when you walk in a room, you don't know who you are. And when you go in a booth, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a conversation, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a gym, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a Zoom, you don't know who you are. You forgot that you are the salt of the earth. That God has packed you into every sphere of influence to keep back decay.
I've never seen a person open a jar in Longhorns, take out one grain of salt, and throw it on a piece of steak. I've never seen anyone do that. You missed the point.
Watch this: that word "you" in English is "you" in the Greek as a plural pronoun. "Y'all are the salt of the earth." It takes more than one grain to season a steak.
He's already whispering to you about the power of community. It takes more than Philip Anthony Mitchell to keep back decay. It takes a church in a city that's serious about the spread of the gospel and the multiplying of disciples to keep back decay.
You can't do it by yourself. But a squad can keep back the decay in a restaurant. A squad can keep back the decay in a gym. A squad could keep back the decay on a walk when we see two people about to fight. A church can keep back the decay in a city. Churches can keep back the decay in a nation. The body can keep back the decay in the earth.
But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under the feet of men.
This makes no sense to you because of sodium chloride—it's scientifically impossible for salt to lose its saltiness. But in the first century AD, there was no sodium chloride. Salt could lose its saltiness.
There was only one condition that would cause salt to lose its saltiness: they would harvest salt from the Dead Sea. If any impure substances got on that salt, if anything impure or other chemicals got in the salt, the salt would lose its saltiness. When that happened, they could not pack it into food because they had no refrigerators. They would take the salt and throw it out their windows on the street and it would just get trampled. It would be no good for anything.
The only way for salt to lose its saltiness is to pack it with impurities. In the same way, when impurities get in our lives, we lose our saltiness.
Compromise is a chemical that causes you to lose your saltiness. If you have compromise in your life, you lose your saltiness. You will not have positive influence when your life is full of compromise. There are some preachers now so full of compromise, you don't even believe what they say. Their influence has been diminished by the impurity of compromise. They lost their saltiness.
Hypocrisy is an impurity that causes you to lose your saltiness. If there's no congruency between your words and your actions, that is an impurity that causes you to lose influence. If you say one thing, sing one thing, preach one thing, and live another, and people find out, you lose influence. That's how you lose your saltiness.
You're good on the platform, but when people got near you, they saw you were nothing like the song you were singing. You were nothing like the sermon you were preaching. You're nothing like the person they met on Instagram. There's a lot of Instagram shame. There are a lot of people on Instagram you love and celebrate, but if you got close to them, you would not want their life. You want their following, but you don't want their life.
When you are a hypocrite, when there's no congruency between your words and your actions, and people find out, you lose influence. You lose your ability to be salty.
Indifference is another impurity. When you just don't care. Don't care who the next president is. Don't care if they rewrite marriage. Don't care if they make abortion legal again. I don't give a darn. I don't care. It ain't affecting my house. When you talk like that, you lose influence. Don't nobody going to have no influence with the Christian church when you don't care. When you're full of indifference.
But the biggest impurity is unrepentant sin. Not I'm struggling and I love this and I'm a Christian at the same time. I need to help some of y'all who are younger than me. You should stop parading sin on social media. If you stumble into sin, keep that on the low.
Back in the day, they had this thing called good shame. If I make a mistake, I'm not going to parade it with glory until God has done something with it. We need to stop parading sin. When you got the word Christian in your bio and you parade sin, people are watching you. You lose influence. You lose your saltiness.
When you live this way—with rampant, uncontrolled sin, not struggling and trying to change, but living in sin—you lose your saltiness. When you lose your saltiness, you lose your influence.
Listen to what Jesus says: If you lose your influence, you're of no value to me. This is not talking about your eternal security. You'll make it to heaven, but while you're down here, you're unusable. You'll make it to heaven, but while you're down here, to me, you're unusable.
For those of y'all who be compromising to try to win friends or try to get in some crowd or get in some circle, I'm going to tell you a truth I learned: If you try to compromise your Christian values to fit in somewhere, you'll be rejected by the church and rejected by that group. Both people will reject you after a while. The group you compromise to be in, they're going to reject you anyway.
Go read Luke 14. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil—the kingdom—or for the manure pile—the world. So if you lose your saltiness, you're no good for the kingdom or for the world. You're just no good. That's why there's no wins in compromise.
Remember the last verse of the Beatitudes—it's all connected. You might as well be persecuted for righteousness' sake. So yeah, I declare things as a black man. We don't believe in abortion and I get persecuted for that. But I rather be persecuted for righteousness' sake than compromise to fit in with black people who don't like that, 'cause you're just going to reject me anyway.
The Scripture tells us about the sanctity of human life. Before I formed you in the womb, He said to the prophet Jeremiah, I knew you. So they're not pulling the lever for people that promote abortion. But I'm black. See, and you compromise for other groups and you're going to be rejected by both the King and by the group. You're not good for the soil or the manure pile. So you might as well have convictions.
Do you know how you know how powerful salt is in the earth? Like I'd be looking at people that be screaming like, "We hate the church. We hate the church. We hate the church." Really? Let the rapture come and remove the church from the earth. You know what's going to happen? The full force of evil is going to overwhelm the whole globe.
That's what the Bible says is going to happen in Revelation. The rise of the Antichrist. After the rapture of the church, the Antichrist comes to power and then the world is dominated by an evil, seducing spirit.
For as much as the world keeps persecuting the church, they need us in the earth. The only thing holding back the full force of evil is the church of Jesus, the prayers of the saints, the values of Jesus, the vantage point of Jesus. We are the only thing stopping the whole earth from completely decaying.
I was reading in my studies and came across a powerful example of this. Do you remember the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis 18-19?
Two cities that were filled with sexual perversion. Abraham's nephew Lot was living there. God says to Abraham, "Because y'all love sexual perversion and sin—men with men, women with women, all kind of crazy. This is too much. I'm about to destroy both of these cities."
Abraham cries out, "Lord, would you really destroy the city with the righteous in there too? The salt is in there too."
The Lord says, "If I find 50 people, I'll save the city." And he couldn't find 50. Abraham said, "But Lord, if you find 45, would you save the city?" He said, "If I find 45, I'll save the city." Couldn't find even 45. Abraham said, "Lord, if you find 40, will you save the city?" He said, "Yes, I'll save the city." But he couldn't find 40 and 30 and 20 and 25.
"Lord, if you find five righteous people—five grains of salt—would you save the city?" "If there are five grains of salt, five righteous people, I'll spare the whole city." But he couldn't even find five.
God said, "If there's five righteous people, I'll hold back judgment. I will keep myself from destroying two cities if I find just five good people."
One church can't preserve Atlanta. 2819 Church. I could bring revival to a city if I just find one church that will pray and repent and cry out and stay on the wall and spread the gospel and multiply disciples and train up others. If I could just find one church that's serious, I might be able to bring revival to a city. But he couldn't even find five.
So Abraham went and got Lot out of there. Don't look back. Ran into the field. Don't look back. God then, once the last righteous person left, rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.
He destroyed two cities because there were no righteous people left holding back decay. And archaeologists have found these two cities in the Middle East buried under mounds. When they moved back the sands, they found two things: cities and 98% pure sulfur. These two cities buried under sulfur mound 98% pure.
Where did that sulfur come from? You just go Google it. Forget the Bible. Go Google sulfur deposit buried cities, Middle East. But nobody knows how all that sulfur got there. Genesis 19. And God rained down fire and brimstone and overthrew those cities with the sulfur that came from heaven.
But Jesus didn't stop there. He says, "You have another identity too."
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people put a light under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)
"You are the light of the world." This is another emphatic pronoun in the Greek. You and you only are the light of the world. If Christians are the light of the world, then what is Jesus telling you about the world? The world is dark.
Jesus is already telling us the world is dark. It's spiritually dark. It's morally dark. It's ethically dark. Wherever Jesus is not, there is darkness.
I was looking at this text and I thought to myself, but Jesus called Himself the light and the writer said, "God, He is light." So I really have no light on my own. I'm only a reflector. I'm a moon. I gaze at Christ and then His light bounces off of me into the lives of other people.
He says, "You a city set on a hill cannot be hidden." That makes no sense to you because you drive down to some cities. But in this time, all cities were built on hills. And when people lit their candles, you would see those cities in the distance. So any place anybody was in the dark, you would see cities from a distance.
That is if you are light, you cannot hide. You can't have faith undercover. If you really have faith, it's going to be seen. You can't put it under a bowl. 'Cause if you really have faith, it's going to be seen.
He says, "You are the light of the world." You know what light is? Light in the scriptures is synonymous for truth. It's synonymous for God's word. It's synonymous for Jesus. We are the light of the world. So wherever we go, we're supposed to radiate the person and the values of Christ.
If I'm in the gym, I'm the light of the gym. If I'm in Walmart, I'm the light of Walmart. If I'm online, I'm the light online. If I'm in a Zoom, I'm the light of that Zoom. Wherever I am, I am the light.
Light is about truth. It's about God. So you are the light of the world. You are the preservers of truth. You are the preservers of the values of the kingdom. When people see you, they should see Christ coming off of you.
For some of you, you are the only Bible your family members and friends are ever going to read. You are the light of the world. You can't put it under a bowl. You can't hide.
The world looks like darkness. This is what the gym looks like. This is what your office looks like, your job looks like. Every place you go in Atlanta, in the country, in the world, this is what we're in. We're in a spiritually dark world. Everywhere.
This is what you look like when you walk into the gym. But you don't see yourself like this. This is what you look like when you go into the office. This is what you look like when you go into the job. This is what you look like when you get around your unsafe family members. This is what you look like when you're in Walmart and Target and the mall. This is what you look like on the highway.
Every place in the world, this is what you look like. You are the light of every sphere of influence. But if you don't understand your identity, you walk into the room looking like this. You just as dark as the world. So we can't see Christ coming off of you.
But when you understand your identity, you understand that every place you walk into, you walk in like this. You go to school like this. You're on your college campus like this. You're in the meetings like this. You're in Zoom like this. You're on Instagram like this. You're in Visco like this. You're in your job like this.
The light that's beaming off of me is not my own virtue. It is the reflection of Christ beaming off of me. His words coming out of my mouth. His love coming out of my heart. His ways coming out of my life. This is your identity in the world.
And if you don't walk like this, what hope does the world have?
At your family reunion, this is what you look like. And because you don't know your identity is why you keep navigating out here. So you don't have no confidence in your swag and you don't walk with no authority and you don't talk like you got the truth. And you get backed down by people who are arguing about the Bible being incorrect because of something they read on Google.
You are—Jesus said—the light of the world. A city set on a hill. Somebody walk in that back door. It cannot be hidden. Only your own compromise, your own fear, you being a coward in the times we're living in will keep you from shining. That's the only thing that will put a bowl over you. Your compromise. Your fear. You so terrified of standing for Christ.
Everything outside of the light is dark. Everything outside of Jesus is dark. Every religion, every belief, every crystal, every fortune teller, everything outside of Christ and the word of God is dark. Every teaching of every false prophet is dark. Every teaching disconnected from the scriptures is dark. Every church where Jesus is not glorified and Satan is on the platform is dark. Every conference where God has not been exalted is dark.
Even people who are moral and apart from Jesus, they live in darkness. You're the only light some of them may see.
Are you salty? Are you lit?
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. There's nobody else coming behind you. It's the church of Jesus and the church of Jesus only. We are the only lights in the world. And if you don't see yourself like this, you won't know how to govern yourself outside these doors.
You won't know how to govern yourself on social media. This is your identity. You are salt and you are light. This is your identity.
And the only decision you have to make in this moment is whether or not you're going to embrace that or you're going to reject it.
This is me in my home. This is me with my children. This is what I'm trying to be with my wife. This is what I am when I go in the gym. This is what I am when I hop in a Zoom. This is what I am when I'm going through Atlanta. This is what I am when I'm in a restaurant. This is what I am when I'm talking to a servant who I don't treat like a slave at a restaurant—that I ask them their name and I leave them a 20% tip.
This is what I am on social media. What are you using yours for?
Be salty and shine a light on them. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
We're living in the last days, my brothers and sisters. It is Jesus and Jesus only that makes the darkness tremble.
At what point in time do you stop playing around and you take up the mantle of your identity as salt and light? How many years are you going to go to church before you figure out who you really are and walk in it? How many services is it going to take? How many conferences? How many books? How many podcasts?
Some of y'all, you've been in church your whole life. At what point in time does it click that you are salt and you are light? How many times you going to read this text and not walk in your identity?
This is the identity that Jesus gave you. I'm trying to preach you into your identity that you may have great impact and influence.
I pray that in this very moment, God, there would be a spirit of repentance fall on this house, fall on everyone watching across this camera. I pray God that we would sit down and lay down and push off God Lord the altars of our hearts all these other false identities, Jesus, that we would take up the mantle of what you call us to be—salt, that we would fight for the preservation of the values of the kingdom—light, that we would radiate the character of Christ every place we are, we would dominate that face for the glory of your kingdom.
That's what you said. That men will see our light and glorify you who are in heaven. That's our good character. Enough with doing church and living anywhere we want. God, I pray in this moment there will be a pivotal shift in the hearts and the minds of your children.
I pray we would leave out of this dark room emboldened to be salt and to be light. This is the identity you have given us in the kingdom.
If it comes at the cost of persecution, we'll take it. If it comes at the cost of being unpopular, we'll take it. If it comes at the cost of never being famous, we'll take it. That if we're going to be influencers, we want to be influencers for the kingdom first.
